Friday, April 08, 2016

Who is Qualified?

Things are heating up between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. As Sanders has closed the gap between their two campaigns in recent weeks Hillary has increasingly gone negative in response.

It is good to see Sanders respond by telling deeper truths about Hillary Clinton who is nothing more than a corporate puppet posing as a democrat.

Due to the more than 700 'super delegate' party apparatchiks pledged to Clinton it still remains unlikely that Sanders can win the nomination. The entire structure of the 'Democratic Party' is aligned against Sanders - the reason the 'super delegates' were created in the first place is to ensure that someone like Sanders does not ever win the nomination. It is a rigged game but one most give credit where credit is due - the Sanders campaign has persevered so far largely due to his young supporters.

The obvious problem for Clinton and the Democrats is that they are alienating an entire generation of emerging young activists. What incentive will young voters have to vote for Clinton if the 'Democrats' successfully hand her the nomination? The corporate media is also working overtime to ensure that Clinton prevails.

I hope that Sanders can defeat Clinton - I'm fed up with the unofficial Bush and Clinton 'royalty' in the US. Their sense of entitlement is a total detriment to real democracy. Plus Clinton is crazy as shit.

In the end if Clinton gets the nomination it will be more than interesting to see if Sanders endorses Hillary. How could he?

How could people who worked so hard on the Sanders campaign sit back and watch the corporate 'super delegates' and the extreme media deliver the goods for Hillary and then turn around and vote for her? I can't begin to imagine.....

'Mass Gathering' Ordinance Tabled in Bath

Last night a packed city hall chambers here in Bath, Maine watched in excitement as the council voted 6-2 to indefinitely postpone a vote on a new 'mass gathering' ordinance. Several of us from the local peace movement spoke and requested that the 12-page ordinance be tabled.

A local weekly newspaper called The Forecaster reported this morning on their web site:

Bruce Gagnon of Centre Street, who has served as coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, was the first of the residents to state their opposition to the rule.

“To me, this ordinance was confusing,” he said. “The fact that it took longer to read than the United States Constitution indicates how confusing it is. I think it’s overbearing, and potentially unconstitutional in various parts.”

Gagnon noted vigils he and others sometimes hold outside BIW, could fall under the ordinance.

“If we had more than 50 people for six hours, we’d have to pay a $100 administrative filing fee, get $1 million liability insurance, and pay for any police coverage that the city deemed necessary,” he said. “That would essentially be putting a price tag on free speech.”

He asked that the matter be tabled in order to gather more public input.

Mary Beth Sullivan of Centre Street noted that the gatherings in which she and Gagnon participate are not always spontaneous [they amended the ordinance to allow for 'spontaneous' protests], and that the group could opt to stay longer than originally planned.

“I’m hearing you all say, this has nothing to do with what you intended, but (my) concern is for the unintended consequences,” she said.

Councilor Bernie Wyman noted that the council has sought public input on the ordinance.

“We’ve gotten their input,” he said to his fellow councilors. “I haven’t heard anybody out there get up and speak in favor of the ordinance.”

“We’ve been without (such an ordinance) for a very long time,” Councilor Steve Brackett said, speaking in favor of slowing down the process, and holding another workshop to hear more feedback.

He added, “I do understand the need for an ordinance like this … to protect the city and taxpayers. But given what has gone on tonight, and communication I’ve had, and interesting points raised, I wouldn’t vote in favor of this tonight.”

Several other Bath residents also made strong comments about the ordinance - everyone who spoke asked the council to table it and hold more public meetings to give local citizens the chance to express their concerns. We only learned about the proposed ordinance after the first public hearing was held and an article appeared in the local daily paper. Several of the city councilors acknowledged they received more public comments since that first hearing than they usually get on most city affairs.

One of the better testimonies of the evening came from Peter Woodruff who recently retired after 33-years as a BIW shipyard worker. Peter has a severe medical condition caused by years of inhaling manganese dust when steel is cut. He is loosing his ability to speak normally and he bravely stood up and told his personal story about his speech problem but also how the ordinance would impact the union's picket line during strikes at the shipyard. Peter said he was involved in two strikes and that the union kept picket lines going throughout the night since the shipyard works round-the-clock. Peter is also an active participant in the local peace movement.

The proposed ordinance calls for any protest over 50 people that lasts more than six hours to have to pay a $100 administrative filing fee, get $1 million liability insurance, and pay for any police coverage that the city deemed necessary. In addition the ordinance says that protests would not be allowed after 11:00 pm.

During my testimony I also said:

In order to get more information about potential costs, I called our local insurance agency and asked for the price of a $1 million dollar liability policy for a BIW protest. The agency called four companies that provide those policies and none of them would insure such an event. So even if we were willing to buy the insurance (which we are not) we couldn’t get it anyway. And by your ordinance as it now reads we’d be denied the right to protest if we didn’t get such a policy.

One thing that supposedly makes America great, we are told, is our unfettered right to have issue conversations in the public square – even if they last more than six hours. The recent Occupy movement comes to mind where people spent weeks in the public square - well beyond the 11:00 pm limit the ordinance proposes.

It was good that the city council listened to the public last night - very encouraging. We'll have to pay close attention if and when another public hearing is scheduled so we can continue the dialogue on this 'mass gathering' ordinance.

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

The Money Go-Round

The Panama Papers leak is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to global tax havens.

I want to see some names of leading western politicians....why were they not released?

The United States government is behind the recent tax avoidance-related leak known as the Panama Papers, in order to target Russia and President Vladimir Putin, renowned whistleblower group WikiLeaks claimed early Wednesday.

WikiLeaks say the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project or OCCRP, "which targets Russia and (the) former USSR," receives funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development or USAID and that U.S. hedge fund billionaire George Soros was behind the leak.

“#PanamaPapers Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID & Soros,” WikiLeaks wrote on Twitter. “US govt funded #PanamaPapers attack story on Putin via USAID. Some good journalists but no model for integrity.”

Immediately after the leak went live, many news outlets were focused on how a friend of President Putin was directly involved in hiding billions of dollars in offshore tax havens using the services of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

However, Putin himself is not directly linked to the leaks and his name did not appear in the leaked documents. Putin's photo though was emblazoned across these stories throughout the western world.

The Big 'Boogey Man'

Washington always needs a boogey man to justify a military empire consisting of 1,000 bases around the world and a Pentagon budget that consumes 54% of every federal discretionary tax dollar.

Russia, spending 4.8% of the global total of military spending, is now defined by Secretary of War Ashton Carter as the #1 enemy of the US. This enemy creation propaganda is designed to spread fear in the hearts of the American people and NATO allies in order to get citizens to pony up even more $$$ for the endless war machine.

Here is something I wrote on this subject back in 2007 that I'd like to share again. I think you will see the connections:

When I was a boy my family lived in South Dakota, just near the Black
Hills. We arrived at Ellsworth AFB in a blinding blizzard one winter. I
became completely mesmerized by Indian history, culture, and religion. I
read everything I could get my hands on about the "people" as the
Indians called themselves.

Our Sunday drives into
the Badlands and the Black Hills, and my hunting trips with my dad into
the Black Hills, provided me with up close contact with the land the
Lakota called the "paha sapa" - the heart of the Earth.

All
of my adult life I have continued to read about Native Americans and I
try to return to South Dakota whenever I can. The oldest poster on my
wall in my office is one I got in 1980, when my son Julian was in his
mothers womb, at the Black Hills International Survival Gathering.
The poster says "Don't weep for the earth - fight to save her!" At that
time we drove from Florida to the Black Hills to participate in this
event that was held just outside the gate of the B-52 bomber base at
Ellsworth - the same base I had lived on as a kid. The circle was
complete.

After
gold was discovered in the Black Hills the U.S. Army was sent in to
clear the Indians out of their paha sapa even though they had been
promised in a previous treaty that they would "own" this territory as
long as the grass grew green. The inevitable battle led to Custer's last
stand and the resulting major military campaign to bring the "hostiles"
onto reservations in the dusty lands of southwest South Dakota.

Crazy
Horse and Sitting Bull held out as long as they could. But the cold
winters and diminishing buffalo and other wild game forced them
ultimately to surrender. This process literally broke the hearts of the
people. The conditions of surrender were that they had to give up their
guns and their horses - essentially their very way of life.

The
government was to provide them with all they needed from then on. Food,
clothes, and even tepees. But they soon found out the promises were not
honored. The blankets they were given were so thin they could not keep
the people warm at night. The flour had bugs in it and the bacon was
rancid. The people could not even go and hunt anymore as their guns and
horses were gone. They continued to starve and die. But they honored
their word to the white man's government and stayed peaceful.

The
weapons contractors, that had grown rich from the Indian wars in the
1860's, were getting restless. This peace with Crazy Horse and Sitting
Bull was cutting into their previous enormous profits. So they came up
with a plan.

They
created a national public relations campaign and had artists create
renderings of Crazy Horse on the war path again killing settlers and
raping white women and children. These stories were placed in the big
newspapers across the country and the public became outraged. Soon the
Congress appropriated more funds to return the "hostiles" to the
reservation.

In
fact, during this campaign of deception, Crazy Horse was sitting in his
tepee on the reservation without a gun or horse to his name.

When
you think about it the story is virtually the same today in Iraq. The
government creates a pubic relations campaign about weapons of mass
destruction and then sells the story using the mainstream media to
justify a war and make enormous profits for the weapons corporations.

When I was in the Air Force, during the Vietnam War, I learned how they did the same thing to sell that war as I read The Pentagon Papers- the government's own secret history of how they lied to create that war.

The process is again under way today in Asia as we see the U.S. beginning to provoke and demonize China in a new arms race that would bring huge profits to the war industry.

They
say that every criminal has an MO - modus operandi - method of
operation. When I was young I wanted to be an FBI agent when I grew up
so I could fight against organized crime.

Then one day I woke
up and realized that the military industrial complex was the essence of
organized crime. So I took myself to the peace movement where I could
fulfill my boyhood promise to work for "truth, justice, and the American
way."

Sometimes
I wonder if the fate of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and the other
native people will be the fate of the American people of today as well.
In order to pay for endless war the government, clearly under the
control of the military industrial complex as former President Dwight Eisenhower warned us,
is now moving to destroy social progress in our country as they cut
education, health care, and the like. In a way I wonder, are we now
being brought onto the reservation too?

Under
the New World Order job # 1 of corporate globalization is to maximize
profits internationally. Allegiance to country is a thing of the past.
Corporations move overseas to seek the lowest wage workers possible.
Unemployment grows and the local tax base drys up as jobs leave the U.S.
The process of corporate disinvestment in America is underway. The
Pentagon says that "security export" will be our role under corporate globalization. Endless war.

What can we learn from the time of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull?

Crazy
Horse is remembered for these words: "A very great vision is needed and
the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue
of the sky."

What is our vision for the future of North America and for our Mother Earth?

Monday, April 04, 2016

‘Corruption’ as a Propaganda Weapon

Sadly, some important duties of journalism, such as applying evenhanded standards on human rights abuses and financial corruption, have been so corrupted by the demands of government propaganda – and the careerism of too many writers – that I now become suspicious whenever the mainstream media trumpets some sensational story aimed at some “designated villain.”

Far too often, this sort of “journalism” is just a forerunner to the next “regime change” scheme, dirtying up or delegitimizing a foreign leader before the inevitable advent of a “color revolution” organized by “democracy-promoting” NGOs often with money from the U.S. government’s National Endowment for Democracy or some neoliberal financier like George Soros.

We are now seeing what looks like a new preparatory phase for the next round of “regime changes” with corruption allegations aimed at former Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The new anti-Putin allegations – ballyhooed by the UK Guardian and other outlets – are particularly noteworthy because the so-called “Panama Papers” that supposedly implicate him in offshore financial dealings never mention his name.

Or as the Guardian writes: “Though the president’s name does not appear in any of the records, the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage. The documents suggest Putin’s family has benefited from this money – his friends’ fortunes appear his to spend.”

Note, if you will, the lack of specificity and the reliance on speculation: “a pattern”; “seemingly”; “suggest”; “appear.” Indeed, if Putin were not already a demonized figure in the Western media, such phrasing would never pass an editor’s computer screen. Indeed, the only point made in declarative phrasing is that “the president’s name does not appear in any of the records.”

A British media-watch publication, the Off-Guardian, which criticizes much of the work done at The Guardian, headlined its article on the Putin piece as “the Panama Papers cause Guardian to collapse into self-parody.”

But whatever the truth about Putin’s “corruption” or Lula’s, the journalistic point is that the notion of objectivity has long since been cast aside in favor of what’s useful as propaganda for Western interests.

Some of those Western interests now are worried about the growth of the BRICS economic system – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – as a competitor to the West’s G-7 and the International Monetary Fund. After all, control of the global financial system has been central to American power in the post-World War II world – and rivals to the West’s monopoly are not welcome.

What the built-in bias against these and other “unfriendly” governments means, in practical terms, is that one standard applies to a Russia or a Brazil, while a more forgiving measure is applied to the corruption of a U.S. or European leader.

Korean Lawyers Defend Village on Jeju Island from Samsung & Navy

The Navy’s damage claim against Gangjeong residents is a declaration of war
against its own citizens

By Lawyers for a Democratic Society (Minbyun)

The ROK Navy is claiming a sum of 3.4 billion won [approximately 3 million
US dollars] in damages against 116 individuals including residents and clergy
and 5 organizations. The Navy is demanding this money in compensation for the
losses incurred by the construction company due to a 14-month delay in
construction in the naval base due to residents, etc. obstructing the work.
We (Minbyun) found that this case is an unjustified declaration of war against
the people.

If the state suffered property loss, would it be fair to take individual
citizens to trial to claim reparations? In pursuing its objective, the state has
the power to seek criminal punishment and to take many steps including
administrative measures, fines, penalties, non-compliance charges, etc. and the
imposition of various administrative monetary sanctions. If such a state were to
suffer financial losses due to a delay in construction and were to claim
compensation from individual citizens, this could be used as a weapon to block
all those who are critical of any state policy in the future. In this kind of
situation, who would be able to oppose state policy?

When ominous heavy equipment destroys the foundation of life with no
hesitation, citizens have no other power but to use their own bodies to stand in
front of it. Before carrying out so-called ‘state policy’, the state should
listen carefully to its citizens’ voices. When the reckless development of the
state and large construction companies threaten the right of citizens to a
peaceful existence, the right of citizens to oppose this must be guaranteed as
their natural and constitutional right since sovereignty rests with the people.
To condemn this action as illegal is to delegitimize the foundation of
democracy.

The insistence that the construction delay was caused by residents is
groundless. There are multiple complex reasons for the delay in the construction
schedule.The principal reasons include disputes and controversy over the
legality of the work, suspension orders issued over illegal construction work,
losses and damage to structures caused by the natural environment, the strong
wind and waves of Gangjeong’s coastline, Typhoon Bolaven, Typhoon Neoguri, etc.
It is sophistry and exaggeration to claim that the residents blocking
construction vehicles from entering and leaving the base for only a few minutes
at a time caused the delay.

The responsibility lies solely with the state for threatening citizens’
right to a peaceful existence and causing their pain by enforcing this wrongful
government policy. There is no one else as responsible for this as the
government. The state rather than the residents bears the responsibility.
Without mentioning a word about their own responsibility, it is the height of
irresponsibility for the state to shift the blame for the delays in the
construction onto individual citizens. The state that should be protecting the
basic rights of its citizens is instead declaring war against them.

The Navy read and copied an enormous amount of criminal case records in the
prosecution office in order to prepare this civil case. Individual criminal case
files contain very important personal information so they only can be provided
to a third party based on legal grounds. For example, in cases where the parties
have applied for a trial or where the need to conduct an investigation is
recognized, it is possible through a decision of the court. Even before the Navy
can properly file a lawsuit on legal grounds, it must reveal whether it copied
individual criminal case records.

Minbyun defines this claim for reimbursement not as one simple trial but as
a provisional seizure used to strangle workers. Like this, it has a historical
connection to the suppression of labor. It has a dishonest intention to extend
dangerous statism to the judiciary. Minbyun will organize a legal team to fight
for the 121 people and will make efforts and take measures to inform the public
both domestically and internationally about the unconstitutionality and
illegality of this case. The state should stop threatening citizens with this
case. It should get out from behind this case and get down on its knees in front
of its citizens and apologize for causing them pain.

Take Action:
Please call the South Korean embassy or consulate nearest you and
complain about this outrageous action to destroy Gangjeong village. Here is the link to find the ROK consulate nearest you in the US. Do it today!

Obama's Nuclear Summit - It Wasn't....

Obama speaks during his 'nuclear summit' in Washington. Russia skipped the show.

Obama gathered 'world leaders' in Washington this past week to once again attempt to justify his 'Nobel Peace Prize'. He failed. (In the final group photo Kiev's Petro Poroshenko is standing behind Obama. He grabbed $335 million in US military aid while at the event. That should tell you all you need to know.)

When the US can't get the other country with an equivalent size stock of nukes as your own to come to its party then something ain't working right. Russia skipped the meeting for these primary reasons:

1) The US is encircling Russia with 'missile defense' (MD) systems in Poland, Romania, Turkey and on US Aegis destroyers stationed in the Mediterranean, Black, and Baltic Seas. The job of these systems is to pick off Russian retaliatory responses after a US first-strike attack is launched. These MD systems were outlawed under the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between Russia and the US, though when George W. Bush became president he withdrew from the program. Since then US Space Command research, testing, and deployment of MD systems has been on steroids.

2) Russia and China keep declaring that the Pentagon's MD program puts their nuclear retaliatory capability in jeopardy so serious negotiations on nuclear disarmament are on the freeze. The US claims their encirclement of Russia and China is not about them. Instead the US claims that Iran is the reason for US MD being stationed near Russia. Washington tells China that North Korea is really the target for is expanding MD in Asia. Neither Iran nor North Korea have the missile technology to fire a rocket that could hit the continental US. Iran has no nuclear weapons program and North Korea has a couple nuclear warheads. Hardly a real threat.

3) Current US destabilizing shenanigans along Russia's huge borders (Ukraine, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Belarus and more) are creating a pincer effect on Moscow. Putin's government knows they are on the take down list. The US-NATO are provoking Russia to militarily respond in order to justify further western moves toward regime change. A very dangerous game.

4) We know that Obama is the magician - he says one thing, very convincingly to many people and the corporate dominated media, but on the other hand he is building new generations of nuclear weapons. New generations of nuclear submarines are in the funding pipeline. Major space directed warfare technology upgrades continue to be made by the Pentagon. So how serious is the US about showing leadership on the nuclear issue? Nada, zilch, nix, none......

5) The Obama team (consisting of many Bush-era neo-cons who created the disaster in Iraq) is bringing many bad characters to its 'coalition' - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Israel, France and the UK, among others. All of these countries are funding, directing, and participating in US-NATO backed hot wars and hybrid wars. At home each of those countries continue to extract cruel austerity measures as they destroy social programs. They need the money for war.

Obama has brought the right-wing leaders of South Korea and Japan into the US military alliance aimed at China and Russia. The White House calls it 'rebalancing' into the Asia-Pacific region.

6) Washington feels that Russia has gotten too big for its britches. The gall of Moscow to defend Syria and the Russian speaking people along its border with Ukraine - this is more than the US can stand. Russia is supposed to sit back and quietly watch the US take down countries like Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya. The creation of the counter-IMF/World Bank apparatus called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) directly challenges the west's banking and global economic domination. Thus we see Washington working overtime to recently step-up destabilization in Brazil, South Africa and China as well as their on-going campaign against Moscow. There is a world war going on here folks.

The ultimate goal of the Obama summit is to reinforce the notion that the US still runs the world. It ain't so Barack. Your days are over and its clear that nothing substantial came out of the event. How could it with Russia refusing to play charades? These kinds of international discussions should be taking place at the United Nations anyway but the US continues to do everything possible to undermine the UN. US wants a unipolar world - but the multi-polar world is here. Get used to it so we can move on and deal with climate change and growing poverty around the world.

Obama is a charlatan and I can't stand watching him anymore than I did George W. Bush, or either Clinton, or daddy Bush (the CIA man) before that. They are all corporate stooges.

Drive a stake through the heart of Obama's nuclear summit. It wasn't........

A 2013 United Nations report exposed that the international realtor agency called RE/MAX illegally profits from the sale and rental of homes in Israeli-only settlements on occupied Palestinian Territory. These settlements violate international law, have created a serious refugee crisis, and are an impediment to peace. RE/MAX is now on the list of companies boycotted by advocates for human rights in the US, Europe, and beyond.

Activists in Maine have been visiting local RE/MAX realtor agencies as most of those who work there know little about these issues. The goal has been to bring pressure on RE/MAX to get out of the business of selling stolen property. RE/MAX provides its name, as well as training, technological resources and marketing to its franchises, and in return, it earns revenue from each home sale.

More than 600,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in a violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The settlements restrict Palestinian freedom of movement, obstructing farmers' access to their agricultural land. Selling property in the Israeli settlements, the UN report states: "contributes to the commission of the international crime of transferring citizens of the occupying power onto occupied territory."

The Israeli government is currently making policy and
legislative moves in the US, UK, Canada, France and other countries to suppress the free speech rights of citizens calling for the boycott of Israel over its
human rights abuses.

Israel is now planning to significantly step up its efforts to thwart
the Palestine solidarity movement, through its embassies in key
capitals.

There are even more companies on the boycott list. See the whole thing here